Morphy_number
Morphy number
Connection distance to Paul Morphy
The Morphy number is a measure of how closely a chess player is connected to Paul Morphy (1837–1884) by way of playing chess games.[1]
This article contains a list of miscellaneous information. (January 2021) |
People who played a chess game with Morphy have a Morphy number of 1. Players who did not play Morphy but played someone with a Morphy number of 1 have a Morphy number of 2. People who played someone with a Morphy number of 2 have a Morphy number of 3, et cetera.
As of October 2019[update], there are very few known living players with Morphy number 3. Many ordinary players have a Morphy number of 6 or more.[2]
The idea is similar to the Erdős number for mathematicians, the Bacon number for actors, and the Shusaku number, the equivalent for the board game of Go.
Taylor Kingston states that the idea of the Morphy number may have originated in a June 2000 note by Tim Krabbé, who has Morphy number 4. Krabbé wrote "I once played an official game with Euwe, who played Tarrasch, who played Paulsen, who played Morphy."[2][3]
These are players who are important in making links for Morphy numbers.
Morphy number 1
Morphy is known to have played about 100 people, but all of the known links for players with Morphy number 2 go through the following five players.[1][4]
A few years after the early lists of Morphy numbers tabulated, it was discovered that a fifth player, James Mortimer, was Morphy's friend and he played casual games with him. This gives Mortimer a Morphy number of 1, creating a need to drastically revise those previous lists to include many more players.[4][5] This is because Mortimer had a very long, if not particularly successful, career, including the Ostende-B 1907 tournament. This enabled many famous younger players to gain a Morphy number of 2, including Mieses, Tartakower, Znosko-Borovsky, and Bernstein, who played beyond WW2, enabling still younger players to gain a Morphy number of 3, and so on.
Morphy number 2
Everyone in this group played someone in the group above. The Australian champion Frederick Esling achieved MN2 by beating Anderssen in an offhand game[6] and another Australian champion, Julius Leigh Jacobsen (1862–1916)[7] achieved MN2 by beating Bird in a casual match +4-2=1, enabling many Australian players of the early 20th century to achieve MN3.[8] The following are some of the most important players who have achieved MN2.[1]
Morphy number 3
Most of the masters in this group played several members of the previous group. This group includes some of the most important players for making connections to later generations. Botvinnik and Reshevsky played older masters such as Lasker and Janowski, had long careers, and played many younger players.[1] Najdorf was Tartakower's pupil and they played a number of published games together, and Najdorf played blitz right into his 80s, allowing many younger players to achieve 4. Smyslov and Keres had very long careers, so much younger players achieved MN4 by playing them. Gligoric also played Tartakover,[17] allowing many Yugoslav players to achieve 4. C.J.S. Purdy played Tartakower,[18] enabling many Australian players to achieve 4. Fairhurst, who played Tartakover,[19] was many times champion of Scotland, and later moved to New Zealand, so a number of players in these countries achieved 4 by playing him.
As of August 2023, living players with Morphy number 3 are Leonard Barden, Bernard Cafferty, Owen Hindle, Franciscus Kuijpers, Christian Langeweg, Friðrik Ólafsson, Oliver Penrose, Stewart Reuben and Jim Walsh.[4][20][21][22][23]
Morphy number 4
As of 2013[update] many of these players are still alive; a few (such as Anand, Adams, Nakamura, Svidler and Ivanchuk) are still active.[1]
Morphy number 5
As of 2013[update], many of the top grandmasters were thought to be in this group (along with a large number of lower-rated players).[1] However, several players initially thought to be in this group were actually MN4s;[53] for instance, based on playing Smyslov, who played Tartakower and Bernstein.
- Your Morphy Number is Up, Taylor Kingston, The Chess Cafe, 2005
- Playing the Morphy Number Game, Tim Harding, The Chess Cafe, 2010
- Frederick Rhine, Fun with Morphy Numbers
- Taylor Kingston, Morphy numbers revisited: the Mortimer effect, ChessCafe.com, 1 Oct 2014.
- Played James Mortimer in the City of London Championship of 1910/11.
- Played James Mortimer at Ostend, 1907.
- Played James Mortimer in several City of London Championships from 1906 to 1910.
- Mortimer played Sir George Thomas in the Canterbury 1903 and Brighton 1904 tournaments. Gino de Felice, Chess Results, 1901-1920, McFarland & Co., 2006, pp. 26, 37.
- Barden's comments to Tim Harding, Playing the Morphy Number GameArchived 2011-06-06 at the Wayback Machine, chesscafe.com, 2010.
- Edward Winter, Chess Note 6614, June 11, 2010. Retrieved on September 15, 2010.
- Hindle played E.G. Sergeant in the 1960 British Championship
- Jim Walsh played Ossip Bernstein in the 1955 An Tostal Cork tournament
- JM Aitken beat Savielly Tartakower at Southsea in 1949
- Defeated Edward Guthlac Sergeant in the 1960 British Championship
- Čeněk Kottnauer played Tartakower at the Staunton Memorial Tournament, Groningen 1946.
- Played Ossip Bernstein at the 1961 IBM Amsterdam tournament.
- Boyd, Brian. Vladimir Nabokov: The Russian Years. Princeton University Press, 1990, p. 259.
- Played Eugene Ernest Colman, Morphy number 2, at least three times, 1947-1953; scores recorded in Surviving Changi: E E Colman by Olimpiu G Urcan (Singapore, 2007)
- Robert Wade played Savielly Tartakower twice, in 1951 (Staunton Memorial) and 1953 (Hastings). He also defeated Ossip Bernstein at the IBM Amsterdam tournament in 1961.
- Played Eugene Znosko-Borovsky at Baam in 1947.
- Bloom, Harold. The Bright Book of Life: Novels to Read and Reread. Alfred A. Knopf, 2020.